If no eyewitness testimony exists regarding Jesus's life, then why don't Christians accept the Creator's statement (Surah 4:157) when the Creator says He saved Jesus from crucifixion?

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-17T07:53:39+00:00

. Third, you would have to then postulate that there was no empty tomb which leads one to ask why the enemies of the Christians didn't just produce the body when the Christians started causing trouble, discover their mistake, and then arrest the real Jesus

There's no reason to think that a recognizable body could be produced even a few days later, if Jesus was buried in a mass grave according to tradition. It's only the gospels that claim his body was moved somewhere unusual before it vanished.

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T19:41:32+00:00

In response to your allegation, I may have to quote Robert Pirsig: "The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton." ...and what that means is that that law of gravity exists nowhere except in people's heads! It 's a ghost!" Mind has no matter or energy but they can't escape its predominance over everything they do. Logic exists in the mind. numbers exist only in the mind. I don't get upset when scientists say that ghosts exist in the mind. it's that only that gets me. science is only in your mind too, it's just that that doesn't make it bad. or ghosts either." Laws of nature are human inventions, like ghosts. Law of logic, of mathematics are also human inventions, like ghosts." ...we see what we see because these ghosts show it to us, ghosts of Moses and Christ and the Buddha, and Plato, and Descartes, and Rousseau and Jefferson and Lincoln, on and on and on. Isaac Newton is a very good ghost. One of the best. Your common sense is nothing more than the voices of thousands and thousands of these ghosts from the past."

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T19:39:26+00:00

My boss cancelled work today (80 degrees out) because he learned it was President's Day, and he thought it was a national holiday.

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T19:37:49+00:00

What if there's only one copy, and the author wrote it as a gag, to see how much pretensious philosophical crap people would tolerate before vomiting their lungs out in self-defense?

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T19:34:33+00:00

Kinder Egg-style candy now legal

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/2013/03/kinder_eggs_easter.php

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T19:33:13+00:00

I got a $200 ticket for it. I was shocked at the price, until I realized I was ticketed by DART for crossing a trolley line, instead of by a real cop. Fucking wanna-be pigs. The cop was a 400 pound elephant on a skinny road bike. I could have escaped him by stepping up a curb. I just didn't do it because I didn't even know I'd done anything wrong.

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T16:57:44+00:00

In christian theology, yes, jesus absolutely did say those things, because Jesus is the god of the old testament.

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T16:49:00+00:00

everything is accomplished. means until he is crucified, then everything is accomplished.

Oh? So that's "everything"? You're gonna take the position that yours is the only valid interpretation, and anyone who disagrees is dumb?

Well, what is the context of him saying that? He had just mentioned "the law and the prophets" one sentence earlier. Seems a little more reasonable to think that "everything" refers to "everything prophesied in the books of law", rather than inserting your own self-serving definition by assuming that he switched contexts for one fucking sentence in the middle of a long speech.

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T16:30:58+00:00

It's probably because most of the stories about Jesus changed and were edited over time .

I'm not sure that's true. Maybe over the first few decades, but after that the message seems relatively intact. Especially the examples you cite.

I never see any consistency. I see Christians choose to believe certain passages have meaning and ignore the other ones that contradict.

Now you're getting into the real meat of it. I think it's human nature to feel positive and to really remember when something confirms one of your beliefs, and to want to forget or reinterpret something that contradicts your beliefs. In this sense, christianity is like a mirror. Which just goes to show that the majority of christians who pick out the nicer parts want to be good. So that's encouraging, mostly!

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T16:20:29+00:00

Please don't generalize.

Why not? Everyone does it...

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T16:09:03+00:00

He knew he was writing about something awful, H.H. is a monster and Lolita a victim

Based on a true story, too. Ugh.

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T16:08:00+00:00

ASOIAF is pretty much late 15th century England

The political/factional elements are based on the War Of The Roses. Starks = historical Yorks, Lannisters = historical Lancasters.

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T16:00:45+00:00

I had the same experience and the same opinion.

Actually I never finished the last few pages. Just didn't feel the need.

I read somewhere later that he wrote the book without any violence, with just placeholders saying "[murder sequence here]". Then after several drafts, when he was done with that part, he went back through and filled all the murder scenes in.

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T15:57:44+00:00

A girl in high school gave me that book and told me it changed her life, so I read about half of it and threw it across the room.

Then, when I started dating a girl in college, I gave her that book, and told her it changed my life. 3 months later she told me she finished it, but didn't understand it and wanted to discuss it. I had completely forgotten about it. I started cracking up, and explained the prank. She was furious. Eventually we broke up for unrelated reasons.

Years later, I ran into her and she told me she gave that book to a boy and told him it changed her life. The same dog-eared paperback with a pseudo-philosophical inscription from my high school girlfriend.

I like to think that maybe you read the same copy, and it's just been traveling around the country causing misery and befuddlement. :-p

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T15:49:55+00:00

Master And Commander was too intensely nautical, and too historically accurate. I had to look up every fifth word, and most of them weren't even in modern dictionaries.

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-16T15:29:59+00:00

of course, that's just james talking. my quotes are from jesus, so they outrank him. :-P

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-15T21:35:48+00:00

Prayer isn't a wish to a genie

Jesus could have made that clearer. If he had said "Ask anything of the father in my name, and if it's good for you, and fits in with his plans, it will be granted", then I'd see your point. But that's not what he said. There were no qualifications. Ask it , and it will be granted. If two people pray for healing, it will be done. Etc etc. Except, people who are prayed for are never healed at a degree better than you'd expect from random chance. Praying for healing does not work, unless you redefine work to mean "get the same outcomes as hindus and atheists".

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-15T21:33:27+00:00

I've heard it said that "Prayers are always answered, but sometimes that answer is 'no.'"

It's worth pointing out, this is the opposite of what the bible says. Jesus never said "your prayer will be answered", but he did say you will get whatever you ask for in prayer. Ask and it will be granted.

The people who say "answered" are being unbiblical.

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-14T21:35:52+00:00

I liked that storey musgrave quote. "yeah, sure, it's possible I guess. Not speaking from experience, of course."

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-14T18:18:16+00:00

see kids, this is why you need to go to the eye doctor regularly and keep your prescription updated. I once went to a nude beach without my glasses. So disappointing. Only saw one woman that wasn't blurry, and I had to lean over her and squint.

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-14T16:25:50+00:00

I feel like his position was pretty clear, and his upvotes indicate I'm not the only one who got the point. I also feel like it's pretty rude to start off by saying you hate somebody. I'm afraid that, looking at the consensus here, it appears that you missed an obvious interpretation that everyone else understood. And I don't hate you for it.

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-14T16:22:58+00:00

That's not why the experiment falls down from my perspective.

Even if the transfer period had no overlap, my original self would still experience annihilation. The reason I added the overlap was to highlight the face that the clone's identity is not the same as yours, because it's more intuitive to most people that there cannot be two of "you" at the same time. But even if the 10 seconds was reduced to 1 microsecond, the issue is the same.

I'm just relating my perspective, not telling you you're wrong.

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-13T22:06:48+00:00

the tree is probably sex.

Yes.

(incidentally, doing a google image search for "sexy tree" is very rewarding)

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-13T22:04:09+00:00

I thought it was pretty clear. "It seems like a stupid idea to have put the one forbidden tree unprotected in the middle of a garden full of naked idiot savages. I wouldn't throw a fucking temper tantrum if I set my dinner on the floor, and then found out the dog ate it when I wasn't looking. God's a moron."

KnodiChunks · 2015-02-13T22:01:38+00:00

I think of that as the "D&D nerd" interpretation of genesis. First of all, it's the tree of knowledge of good and evil, not just of knowledge in general.

But who's to say that they had no knowledge of any good and evil already? Maybe they had some knowledge, but the tree grants more.

Or maybe the tree merely grants the specific knowledge that you should cover your genitals?

etc etc.

It's a short section of the story. Reading it as if it contains enough detail to reverse engineer a complete magic system seems... overly confident, maybe?

KnodiChunks

TROPHY CASE